


Responsible For Your Fractured Heart And Its Wounded Beat

by prouvairablehulk



Series: The Bastard Hamilton Sequence [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, but what if they actually sacked Boston, limited historical accuracy, people remember that Madi is a queen this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 21:46:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12803052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairablehulk/pseuds/prouvairablehulk
Summary: “What do you want with Thomas Hamilton?” asks one of the men near the door.“I want to take him away from this place and see him free.” says John, and then realizes that there is no need to obfuscate. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you just tell me if you’ve seen my brother or not?”





	Responsible For Your Fractured Heart And Its Wounded Beat

There is a certain kind of ringing clash that comes only from the blades of two swords meeting in opposition, and it is a sound that James Flint is intensely familiar with hearing from a close distance. He’s also familiar with the look of Charles Vane’s face, covered in blood and soot, at much the same kind of distance, twisted into the familiar smirk he always wore while fighting. 

They disengage, and Vane steps back, panting a little. There’s less noise than James was expecting from the pitched battle for the ship, but he supposes he’s so focused on staying alive in order that he might find Thomas that he doesn’t hear it. 

“You seem more desperate than usual.” taunts Vane. 

“I have somewhere to be.” James snaps back, and steps forward to attack once more. 

“Captain!” 

James freezes mid-swing, the authority and familiarity of the tone hitting something in his subconscious that makes him obey without question. 

“The day has been won, Captain.” says John Silver, gun hanging from loose fingers at his side. Behind him, Miranda clutches at the bloody sword they used to kill Peter, eyes hard, hands covered in dripping red, and Abigail stares in amazement at her hands and the diary they still hold, a man slumped at her feet. “You can stand down.” 

“Of course, Lord Hamilton.” says James, the address coming from that same point in his subconscious as his obedience. John looks - taken aback, to say the least, but Miranda is smiling that small, maliciously delighted smile that danced its way across her face whenever something panned out just as she’d thought. 

“Lord Hamilton?” asks Vane, in a tone of voice that could have been described as a shriek in a lesser man. 

“That - what - fucking fuck, please don’t call me that.” says John, a little weakly. “Thomas is Lord Hamilton, not me.” 

James wipes his sword clean and sheathes it, and then his shoulders bounce in a small shrug. 

“Until I have seen him in person, until I have held him, I must assume he is dead.” says James. “And that means that you are Lord Hamilton.” 

“There are two whole brothers between Thomas and I.” says John. “Surely that means I am safe from ever suffering to bear the yoke of that title.” 

“One died in the Spanish War.” says James. “And the other ran off with a tavern maid, which was somehow the smallest scandal your family has produced. So you remain Lord Hamilton.”

“I don’t want to be Lord Hamilton!” says John, with an absurd pout. 

James bites back the words ‘tough luck’.

“What the fuck is happening on this ship?” demands Vane. “And why is she still here?”

Abigail attempts to hide behind John, which would have been a far more successful endeavour had she not been a good inch taller than him. 

“Miss Ashe remains with us of her own volition, given that her father has proven to be -” James pauses, plainly trying to divine the right words. 

“A traitorous backstabbing bastard?” offers Abigail. 

“Yes, yes, precisely that.” says James. 

John buries his face in his hands. 

“Was he always like this?” he asks of Miranda.

“Just wait until you see the two of them together.” she replies. “They are so much worse.”

John looks up again. 

“If you get my brother killed -” he starts, and Miranda lays a hand on his arm. 

“If anything, Johnny,” she says, “Thomas will be the one to get James killed.”

“We’re going to rescue my brother from highly illegal slavery, and the first thing I’m going to have to say to him is that I’ll trounce him if he gets my Captain killed.” says John, and then he looks up at the sky through the rigging. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“You stole my schedule.” says James, matter-of-fact. “Mister De Groot, Mister Bones, it is imperative that we get underway.”

“May I ask why?” says De Groot, who has a slowly blooming black eye. 

“Because there is only so much time before the citizens of Charleston realize we murdered their Governor.” says John. “Might I suggest we hurry?”

***  
The journey to Savannah takes two days. Two long and arduous days - not because of dread weather conditions, or due to harassment by naval vessels, but instead because the crew would not stop asking questions. 

“So the man we are coming to rescue -” asks Billy, as soon as Charleston has fallen behind the horizon. 

“Is Silver’s brother and my lover, yes.” says James. 

“And the place he’s being held -” starts Vane. 

“Is a penal plantation used to hide aristocratic rebels.” John puts in, waving in the air the collection of papers they had smuggled out in Abigail’s diary in order that no one know where to follow them. 

“And the man on the Maria Alleyne was Mister Silver’s father?” De Groot clarifies. 

“And Thomas’, yes.” says Miranda, nodding. 

“And Miss Ashe is still with us because she helped you kill her father.” says Billy.

“Yes.” says Abigail. 

Joji throws his hands up in the air and stomps off to the railing. 

James expected this first wave of questioning, but the issue was that it just kept happening. It was as if no one on the crew could believe that they finally had the truth of what drove their complex and charismatic captain to do what he did. Dooley, and Logan, and Muldoon, and then Doctor Howell with rum and a pitying expression (although that ended quite unexpectedly with James and he drunk on the quarterdeck belting old Navy drinking songs and alternately complaining and lewdly reminiscing about men they had both served under) - the men just kept coming. 

James is almost grateful when they spot Savannah on the horizon, if only because it will mean Billy will stop asking him for details about the first time Thomas kissed him. 

There’s low grey clouds hovering on the horizon beyond the city, and the wind isn’t cold but instead carries the promise of rain in the future, heavy with possibility. John stands at the rail with James to his left and Vane to his right, studying the port through a spyglass. 

“It won’t take us long to make it to Oglethorpe’s plantation.” says James. “It’s an easy trip.” 

“Getting out is going to be the difficult part.” says Vane. “Once they know our purpose and where we are, they will muster in force to stop us.” 

“They are all desperately trying to convince themselves that they have nothing to be afraid of, even while we evade capture at their hands and kill their leaders.” says James. 

“And what are you suggesting?” asks Vane. 

“That we remind them they were right to be afraid.” says James, and John reaches out with the hand not wrapped around the spyglass, linking their fingers together. Vane grins, wicked and delighted, the kind of expression that belongs amongst slaughter and righteous death. 

***

It doesn’t take them long to find the plantation, in that regard James was right. And when they do find it, it is the work of mere minutes to seize control - there are just enough guards to keep the workers - the slaves, thinks John, and it is a painful thought - and none of them are prepared or armed enough to take on two crews of pirates with a vendetta. John leaves the sacking of the plantation house to James and Vane, and goes looking for any other place they may have housed the prisoners while the attack took place. 

“Silver!” calls Billy, from further down the field. “Silver! They’re in here!” 

Muldoon follows at John’s shoulder, a silent and reliable bodyguard, someone to keep him from being shot in the back. John is grateful for it, having become used to James in the position over the last four days. Billy and Joshua break the door down with ease, their last strike lifting it right off its hinges and accompanied by a strangled cry of fear from inside. 

“There is no need to be afraid.” says John, and then he steps into the doorway. “You have nothing to fear as long as you can tell me where Thomas Hamilton is.” 

There is a moment in which no one in the hut says anything, and John feels as though he may be sick. If this is the last of Peter Ashe’s lies, if Thomas isn’t here, he doesn’t know what he will do. The silence drags on, and a voice in the back of his head that sounds a little like Miranda starts whispering about how this will just destroy James. 

“What do you want with Thomas Hamilton?” asks one of the men near the door. 

“I want to take him away from this place and see him free.” says John, and then realizes that there is no need to obfuscate. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you just tell me if you’ve seen my brother or not?” 

In the darkness in the back of the hut, someone gasps, and then there’s someone rushing forward. Out of the corner of his eye, John can see Billy raising his sword. 

“Put that down, Billy.” he says, and then he’s swept off his feet. 

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny!” Thomas is chanting, and John wraps his arms tight around his neck and holds on while Thomas digs his fingers into the back of John’s shirt and doesn’t let go, and doesn’t let go, and doesn’t let go. 

“Thomas.” sighs John. 

“God, look at you!” says Thomas. “They brought me no news of you beyond that Father had withdrawn your funding and forced you to resign your place at Oxford, and that you had then disappeared. Look at you! What on earth have you done with your hair? You look like a poet, or a philosopher, or a highwayman. Or a pirate.” 

He grins, bright like sunshine, like always, and John finds himself laughing. 

“How did you manage to keep that hair in the Navy?” Thomas asks. 

“I didn’t.” says John, still laughing. “You were, surprisingly, utterly correct in that last assumption.” 

“You’re - you’re a pirate?” says Thomas. “You?”

“I’m just as surprised as you are. Blame your James. He’s really quite obscenely charismatic.”

“And you stole the schedule we needed to steal five million in Spanish Gold.” says Billy. “Right out of the Captain’s hands.” 

John shrugs. 

“I stayed because of the Captain.” says John, and then he looks back at Thomas. “Obscenely charismatic. I was honestly distraught when I figured out who it was - I was going to make a play myself, but no, instead the gorgeous man’s tortured past is that he’s still in love with my fucking older brother.” John throws his hands into the air. “Honestly.” 

Thomas is laughing. Thomas is laughing and for a moment, none of the pain of the last ten years is resting in John’s bones. 

“I always knew you’d like him.” says Thomas. 

“No, you wanted to rub it in my face that you’d found the most ridiculously attractive man in London. His thighs are obscene, I hate you. Also, he’s somehow even more of a romantic than you - he turned himself into the most feared pirate in the Caribbean in order to get revenge for what happened to you.”

Thomas’ eyes go soft, disbelieving. 

“He loves you so much, Thomas.” says John. “It really is wonderful.”

Thomas’ smile is watery, now, and he clutches John back to his chest, twisting the fabric of John’s shirt with the strength of his fingers. 

“Also,” says John, muffled by the coarse fabric of Thomas’ shirt, “your wife is terrifying. I love her.” 

Thomas is actually crying, John can feel it in the way Thomas’ body is shaking against his own, and it’s still the best thing he has felt in years. 

“You’re alive, all of you.” says Thomas. “And I’m not dreaming.”

“No, Thomas,” says John, “you’re not dreaming.” 

They haven’t been at sea for a day but he can taste salt on his own lips, and he doesn’t care what that means.

***

They stagger their way back to the Plantation House, not because of pain or injury but rather because John is a good four inches shorter than Thomas and neither of them is willing to let go of the other. The combined efforts of John’s crewmates and Vane’s crew have shut the place down - the few guards left alive have surrendered, and are under careful guard. Those who aren’t looting or keeping watch back slowly away from John and Thomas as they walk, wide-eyed and staring without shame as they pass. The whispers are loud enough to hear, delighted and intrigued - that is Captain Flint’s lover, they say, that is Silver’s brother, that is the man who has caused all this. 

“They fear me.” says Thomas, confused. 

“They fear James.” says John. “They fear you as a consequence.” 

The men fall into step behind them - a mix of pirates and freed men from the hut, a procession back towards the house and then the ship. Thomas and John are on the veranda at the front of the house when a man comes crashing through it, landing on his back. He’s been beaten to hell, and barely tries to stand up after he lands. James and Vane walk through the doors shoulder to shoulder, bloody swords in hand, blood smeared across their faces, James’ sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and James hears Thomas inhale sharply. Upon closer inspection, Thomas’ eyes are blown, pupils huge, face ever-so-slightly flushed. 

“Of fucking course you think this is attractive.” says John, under his breath. “You fucking romantic.”

Thomas lifts his hand from John’s shoulder to cuff him upside the head, and then drops it back. 

“It’s satisfying to watch Oglethorpe hurting.” says Thomas, inclining his head to the man on the ground. 

“Sure.” says John, knowingly. 

James raises his sword again, and John takes half a step forward. 

“James, stop!” 

James halts in place, sword a few inches from Oglethorpe’s neck. His eyes drag up to the two of them, to John and Thomas still wrapped tight around each other, and then he drops the sword, lets it fall from his hand to the planking, and takes three long strides across the veranda. 

“What -” starts Oglethorpe. 

“Shut up.” hisses Vane. “We’ve all been waiting for this.” 

“Thomas.” James breathes, hands coming up to frame Thomas’ face. 

“James.” Thomas replies, in the same tone, and then he fists his free hand in James’ bloodstained shirt and pulls him in, hauls him so close their noses crush against each other’s faces when they kiss. 

A cheer erupts from the assembled crew of the Walrus, and James is laughing when they part - if separating their mouths and letting their foreheads rest together counts as parting. John rests his head against Thomas’ shoulder, lets James move one of his hands from Thomas’ neck to around John’s waist so that the three of them are wrapped close. 

“Miranda is safe on the ship.” James says. “With Abigail Ashe. Well, Abigail McGraw, now.”

“Peter’s daughter?” Thomas asks. 

“She was the one to discover your whereabouts. And she correctly deduced that her father was responsible for our separation.” says James. 

“Honestly, James.” says Thomas, pitching his voice to carry. “I leave you alone for ten years and you corrupt my baby brother, partially bankrupt England, and adopt a daughter. Whatever am I supposed to do with you?” 

Over the scattered laughter, James replies. 

“Never leave me again?” he says, and someone in the assembled crowd makes a noise like they have just been presented with the most adorable kitten ever to become a ship’s cat.

“Never.” Thomas promises. 

“Good.” says James. 

“As it should be.” says John. 

“Can we leave now, before the militia arrives?” says Billy. 

“For fuck’s sake, William, let them have their moment.” says Vane, but he’s already heading towards the gate they entered by, and to the road beyond that will lead them back to the ship. 

***

They get three blissful days. Three days after Miranda all-but screams Thomas’ name and throws herself into his arms, three days during which the crew throws around enough innuendo regarding the pleas for more and harder that drift out of the captain’s cabin at night and who exactly is making them for them all to discover that James Flint can blush redder than sunburn under the right circumstances, three days of Abigail and Thomas and John arguing about the English school curriculum and its gendered differences, three days of sunshine and good winds, three days of peace. One to get to where the Urca’s treasure had been left and to load up the ship - and the screaming argument between John and James about the former’s lying had only ended when Thomas threw them both out of the cabin and refused to open the door until they had resolved the matter - and then two more to return to Nassau. 

Well, two more to make part of the return journey to Nassau, before they are confronted by Hornigold promising pardons, a battle, and a storm. They struggle through the pouring rain, fight through the starvation and the dehydration brought on by the doldrums - Thomas tries to make a joke of it, says he’s used to the lack of food, that Bedlam conditioned him for such things. Nobody laughs. The men become - softer around him, for want of a better phrase. They have all suffered, and there is something about the carelessness of the telling that makes them understand how deeply Thomas’ scars run, how much like all of them he truly is. John and James kill a shark, kill two sharks, feed the men, and the wind rises slow and soft across the rippling water, and Thomas kisses James right there on the deck surrounded by the crew, and Miranda flings her arms around John’s waist, and Billy swings Abigail up and around off her feet and she clings to his forearms and laughs, her hair blowing in the salt-scented breeze. 

They stop at the first island they encounter. John sits on the sandbank and James brings him water, and John quietly puts forward his conclusions regarding the true nature of the number of pardons, and James nods and tells him he’s likely right, and says they must tell Thomas and Miranda. 

Which is, naturally, when they are all captured by Maroons. 

Thomas and James switch off helping John cover the rugged terrain, providing support, and James drops back to hug Abigail to his side whenever he isn’t helping John, just as Thomas clutches Miranda’s hand. The Queen of the Maroons asks for their captain and their quartermaster, and James and John and Vane all step forward, and Thomas looks like he might be ill at the thought of losing them again, clings to James after they are all tossed in the cage together. Miranda and John pass their days watching the people of the village, wondering about what else they can do. James holds Thomas tight and the two of them encircle Abigail in their arms and James plans an escape for everyone but himself and Thomas tells him that cannot be an option and, and Miranda plans, and John plans, and James tells John to stay away from the dark and not to follow the same paths as he did, and the crew, patient and believing, waits. 

They take Miranda in the middle of the night, and she returns after anxious hours with a smug smirk on her face and her hair askew. 

“They will hear us out.” she says. 

“How can you be sure?” demands Billy. His face is creased in concern, and his arms are folded.

“The Queen’s daughter is going to put a good word in for us.” says Miranda. 

“You slept with her.” says Thomas, suddenly. “I remember that look - you fucked the Queen’s daughter.” 

Miranda’s smirk widens, and she shrugs. 

“Her name is Madi. She believes in our cause, in our fight for freedom.” 

“And you fucked her.” says John, shaking his head. 

“And I fucked her.” Miranda admits. “I walked in and she quoted Horace, you’re going to love her. Stop looking at me like that.” 

“You’re all insane.” says Billy. “Every last one of you.” 

Thomas flinches at the word.

***

They sail back to Nassau with the promise of a war to come, with Madi on the ship right alongside them and the gold buried in the island’s earth as collateral. Miranda was right, and all of her boys do love the Princess. 

(The men have taken to referring to John, James, and Thomas collectively as “Lady Hamilton’s Boys”. They think they are doing so subtly. They are not. All three men love it too much to complain, so this assumption has not been corrected.)

Madi is clever, and forward-thinking, and she spends her waking hours during their voyage talking with Thomas and James and Charles about diplomacy and tactics and philosophy, and her nights curled up in a hammock with Miranda. John complains of being the last one without company at nights and James reels him in by the sleeve of him coat and plants a kiss on his cheek that leaves John speechless, a fact the crew will not let him forget. 

They have a council of war in James’ cabin - in their cabin - and it is agreed that John ought to be the one to share the story of their miraculous resurrection, to provide the pirates of Nassau with a ghost to haunt them until they remember their desire to be free. 

Abigail insists on accompanying him. 

It is the first fight they have had, all of them. It is resolved by Charles throwing a tankard to the floor to create enough noise to distract them, and declaring that someone ought to ensure Abigail knows how to use a sword before she goes ashore. Miranda joins the lessons, and John, watching, tells Thomas that James is a good teacher, is good with Abigail. 

“He would make a wonderful father.” says Thomas, quietly. 

“He is a wonderful father.” says John. 

“You can love him too.” says Thomas. “He has room in his heart for so much love.” 

John feels winded, and resolves not to think about it until later. Thomas hugs him desperately before they go ashore, makes Billy promise to protect him, and John can feel his eyes all the way to shore. 

(He can feel James’ too, but he refuses to think about that. He needs his focus.)

Abigail squeezes his hand, and when she climbs out of the longboat in her borrowed breeches and coat, and Madi does the same before she departs - she smiles at him, fragile, and he smiles back, soft, and this is the woman his sister-in-law has chosen, and John finds himself hugging her before she has time to leave. 

“Come back to us safely.” he says. “You’re family too.”

She nods, and turns again, casting one more cautious look over her shoulder. 

“Insane, all of you.” says Billy, and John punches him in the arm. 

The tavern is the same as it ever is, and John waves the pardon rolls around and swears that men will die or live in fear if they do not honor their oaths, and right as he’s hitting the climax of the speech, Dufresne stands up and interrupts with insults. 

“I know enough of you to know that even whole, you were unworthy of half the attention we paid you.” he says, and John was intending to leave this place without bloodshed, but he certainly isn’t now. 

“And now,” Dufresne continues, “as a God damned invalid -” 

John can see Abigail crossing the floor behind Dufresne’s turned back with a murderous expression he’s only ever seen her newly adopted father wear turning her face into a snarling mask. 

“You expect that to change?” scoffs Dufresne, and Abigail hits him over the head with a tankard from the table at her hip, hard enough to send Dufresne tumbling to the floor. 

She steps back as soon as he stumbles, leaving the floor open. 

“Fuck him up, Uncle John.” 

John stands utterly still for just a moment, just enough grin at her, something vicious and hard that comes from the pain he has suffered, that Thomas suffered, that Miranda suffered, that James suffered. 

And then he draws the sword from his belt and cuts down. 

***

“And then there was blood everywhere and it was incredible!” Abigail tells the assembled crew. “And his head went rolling slowly across the floor and Uncle John squared his shoulders and stood up all straight like Father does when he’s about to convince you all to do something suicidal -” 

John and James both learnt that stance off Thomas, but John won’t interrupt the retelling to correct Abigail on that. 

“And then he said -” starts Abigail, and she assumes the stance and repeats the words back. 

“My name is John Hamilton, and I’ve got a long fucking memory.”

There are whoops from the crew, and Dooley leans over to clap him on the back a few times. Abigail gets swept off by the crew - she’s one of them now, and both she and they are happy about it - and John turns back to the cabin and James and Thomas. 

“You didn’t tell me it would feel like this.” he says as soon as he opens the door, and then he slams it behind him. 

“That what would feel like what?” asks James, with a certain amount of heat that John wasn’t expecting. James is, John realizes belatedly, sitting in Thomas’ lap where Thomas is slouched in the Captain’s chair. Neither of them is wearing a shirt. 

“This path to darkness you told me to avoid.” says John. “You didn’t tell me it would feel good.” 

Thomas clicks his tongue. 

“Corrupting our Johnny even further?” he says. “Shame on you, James, truly.”

James laughs, and it’s a dark sound, dark enough to match the shiver down John’s spine when Thomas called him ‘their Johnny’. James slips from Thomas’ lap and crosses the room so he can frame John’s face the same way he had framed Thomas’, and John gasps in a breath 

“I think we’re expanding beyond pairs, Thomas.” says James.

John looks over at Thomas, who’s just grinning, with alarm. 

“Go on, Johnny.” he says. “Bite the apple.” 

“Sink a little deeper, Lord Hamilton.” purrs James, and for the first time John feels a thrill of pride at the title.

He takes a deep breath, and -

Apples never tasted as sweet as this. 

***  
The next morning finds them gathered at the rail, peering through spyglasses at the tent the Governor has set up on the beach. 

“He is using their shame to keep them away.” says James. 

“Luckily, we have none of that.” says Thomas, grinning at John. 

John, who still has James’ teeth marks in his neck, grins back. 

James, between them, goes red. 

“If you three are quite done.” Miranda teases, and just like that the mood is somber once more. 

“What’s the play, then?” asks Charles. “We won’t have much time. Two hours, maybe three.” 

Behind him, Anne Bonny looks serious and Jack Rackham is shading his eyes with his hand, squinting at the beach. The Colonial Dawn bobs behind the man of war, fully crewed and ready. 

“We need Max.” says Anne. 

“Yes, sure, Max.” says James, and then he looks sideways at John and rather frantically mouths ‘who the fuck is Max’. 

“I’m sure she’ll make it to the rendezvous.” says John. 

“I’m going to go ashore and talk to him.” says James. 

“James, no.” says John. 

“That is a terrible idea, James.” says Miranda. 

“No, we should see what he wants.” says Madi. Miranda glares at her, and Madi grins and presses kisses to her cheek until she cracks a smile. 

“I’ll come with you.” says Thomas. 

“For fuck’s sake!” says John, and James grins, roguish and disarming, and they’re off, the both of them, with Joji in a longboat, before he can blink. 

“Must you encourage them, Madi?” he asks. 

“Things get done when we do it their way.” says Madi, and John glowers at her smirk as she tows Miranda away to the solitude of the cabin. 

They are back sooner than anyone on the ship expected, Max climbing aboard ahead of either James or Thomas. 

“What happened?” John demands. 

“I shot the Governor.” says Thomas, breathless. 

“You did fucking what?” yells Charles. Anne looks impressed, and Jack appears to be checking on Max. 

“I shot the Governor. The plan was that I would stay with the boat and far enough away that he wouldn’t recognize me, but then he started talking, and he was using my supposed death against James, I could hardly stand for that -” 

“Damn fucking right!” Abigail chips in, and rolls her eyes when James scolds her for her language and then pretends not to notice the supportive gestures she gets from Muldoon and Dooley, who undoubtedly taught her to swear. 

“So I walked up to the table and I called him by name and said I was delighted to finally meet him and then I suggested that England and her representatives could go fuck themselves, and I shot him in the face.” 

He sounds pleased with himself, and there’s a faint smile on his face. 

“I see what you meant about the darkness, Johnny.” he says. “It is so - warm. Welcoming.” 

“Thomas,” says James, “are you alright?” 

“I rather think I might be a pirate now.” says Thomas. 

“Fucking right you are!” yells Dooley. Thomas beams at him. 

“Maybe you ought to sit down.” says John. 

“Maybe I shan’t.” says Thomas, more to be contrary than out of any real objection, and then he sits right down where he is on the deck. The assembled leadership of the fight against England stares at him. 

“I think we ought to leave Captain Vane, Captain Rackham, Miss Bonny, and their crew here.” says Madi. “Let them reclaim the island while we fetch my people and the gold.”

“I think that sounds like a plan.” says James, now on his knees with an arm wrapped around Thomas. “Billy, would you stay to help them?” 

Billy stays. The man of war leaves.

When they return to Nassau, the fort flies Rackham’s banner and the people await the return of their leader, of Madi, the Queen of the Free Pirates of Nassau. Billy beams with pride as he tells Madi of the men they killed to destabilize what remained of the English forces, the traitor captains and slavers they murdered in her name, and she smiles and stands on a chair to kiss his forehead, and takes her place as the face of their rebellion as if she were born for it.

Within the week, the harbor is full. 

***  
The ships belong to Maroons who raid slavers, to pirates from Nantucket and Virginia, to smugglers and criminals of all kinds. They all arrive with a singular purpose, and relate that purpose with a similar script. We are here to pledge our support to those who took back Nassau for us, they say, we are here to fight for the Brethren, for freedom, for our way of life. 

Each man swears his loyalty to Madi, who sits enthroned halfway up the central staircase of the former Governor’s mansion, every inch a queen, with Miranda looking regal at her right shoulder. John and Thomas and James rotate who stands at her left, and when it is his turn John focuses all his thought on the man joining their cause, because if he doesn’t he will be forced to remember that he unintentionally walked in on Madi sitting on that throne with her head thrown back while Miranda knelt at her feet, Madi’s hands twisting in her hair. When he complains of this to James, the other man just laughs, walks John back and back until John is pressed against the wall, calls him by his title, and then slides downwards to his own knees. John - doesn’t do much complaining after that, although he does tell Thomas that he’s developed a rather lewd reaction to hearing the title they share, which sends Thomas into fits of laughter followed by an amused agreement. 

All thoughts of James at his feet calling him ‘my lord’ aside, a plan is forming. James has his heart set on Saint Anne’s Bay in Barbados as a first strike, and he sits on the stairs in front of Madi’s throne with his hands steepled as he waits for the two captains who had been there the most recently to agree on the size of the defenses. 

“There are two ten pound guns on the beach.” the Maroon captain informs him, at length. “And at least eighty men at arms. At most, one hundred.”

“One hundred?” James says, disbelieving. “I had reckoned twice that. With a force on the ground of say - three times that number, we could take the town in a week.” 

John, at Madi’s left hand, reaches down until she takes his hand in hers. 

“If you do that,” says the other captain, “you would starve Bridgetown. They wouldn’t last a month.”

“And just like that, we take Barbados.” says Thomas, striding through the crowd to take his place against the banister closest to James. 

“How many of your people could we muster to the mainland, your Majesty?” James asks. 

“Seven hundred?” Madi offers. “Eight, perhaps?”

“And of the slaves in Barbados, how many do you think would fight with us?”

“One in two?” she guesses. 

“Two in three.” says Charles. “Evens out to about twelve hundred men.” 

“With a force like that we could land anywhere.” says James. “Fuck, we could sack Boston.” 

There is a gasp from the collected captains. 

“Boston?” says John, certain he has not heard correctly. 

“Boston.” purrs Miranda, sounding pleased. 

“Boston!” gasps Abigail, swatting at Muldoon’s arm in her excitement. 

“Boston.” echoes Max, eyes distant as she thinks of the possibilities.

“Boston.” says Madi, turning the word over in her mouth, tasting it on her tongue. 

Three months later, James walks down the gangplank and sets his feet on the shore of Boston harbor with something of a swagger, casting a dismissive glance at the group of scared officials and nervous militiamen gathered beneath the white flag. At the rail, Madi surveys the land they have taken, Miranda still at her side, a hand around her waist, face pressed into Madi’s neck. 

“Are you Captain Flint?” asks one of the men he has come to meet. 

“I am.” James replies. 

“Are we to negotiate with you, then?” 

James looks up at the man, affronted. 

“Of course not.” he says. “I’m a tactician, not a diplomat.” 

“Then who are we speaking to?” 

James ignores the question, and turns back to the gangplank, extending his hand to ease disembarking. 

“Lord Hamilton.” he says, and half-bows over his hand, when it is taken.


End file.
